THE SEVENTH, THE EIGHT AND THE DECIDING GAME

By ROBIN FINN

Published: April 20, 1987

LANDOVER, Md.—
IT was hockey, but as the skaters skimmed slowly into quadruple overtime, the scene resembled the gradual disintegration of a marathon dance contest. The pace slowed, and the progression up and down the ice toward goals that suddenly loomed imposing as brick walls looked almost surreal. Even the ice seemed to respire, as if in weariness, and long glaring puddles formed at random on its surface.

This was hockey history, a classic game of two perfectly matched and equally unyielding opponents. Each came so close to reading the other's mind that their duel took on epic proportions. In fact, its resolution required all of Saturday night and a portion of Sunday morning as the Islanders and the Washington Capitals laid siege to each other's goal.

It ended, finally, in the steamy Capital Centre nearly seven hours after the game began. The Islanders beat the Capitals, 3-2, in the fourth overtime period in the seventh and deciding game of their opening-round playoff series.

''It didn't feel real anymore,'' said Pat LaFontaine, who scored the winning goal at 8 minutes 47 seconds of the fourth overtime, ''and for the longest time it felt like no one was ever going to score.''

The same players who spent a prolonged evening immersed in the rigorous and ritual hitting, bumping, grinding and grabbing that are synonyms for body contact in their sport virtually collapsed in one another's arms when it was over.

By then, the fifth longest playoff game in National Hockey League history - the longest since Toronto defeated Detroit, 3-2, at 10:18 of the fourth overtime in a 1943 semifinal - no longer felt like a game.

The standard 60 minutes of hockey, in which the go-ahead goals by Washington's Mike Gartner and Grant Martin were countered by goals from Patrick Flatley and Bryan Trottier, seemed part of the distant past.

As the overtime persisted and tonight became tomorrow, only the moment mattered, and time seemed to slow. The skaters battled to survive each shift, abbreviated to 20 seconds instead of the normal one to two minutes, the goalies to somehow prod their bodies to block the next shot.

The face of Kelly Hrudey, the Islander goalie who made 73 saves, was mottled by the rash that signals heat prostration. Inside the players' gloves, their hands began to blister. All the participants figured their exertions had cost them 10 pounds each in fluid loss.

''This feels like surviving a war and living to tell about it,'' Flatley said. ''When it got to the third overtime and they played the theme from 'Twilight Zone,' I felt like taking a bow. That's the place we all were by then.'' For the relieved Islanders, the night was an odyssey. They rallied from a three-games-to-one deficit to earn the task of meeting Philadelphia, in a series that starts tonight, to decide the Patrick Division championship.

The comeback was all the more remarkable in that it was accomplished without the steadying influence of Denis Potvin, the sniper's antics of Mike Bossy and the diligence of Brent Sutter. With all three veterans sidelined by injuries, the remaining Islanders - a hodgepodge of Stanley Cup veterans, minor league imports and budding stars of tomorrow - had to make do.

The Islanders became only the third team in league history to win a seven-game series after trailing by 3-1 or more. In the 1942 final series, the Toronto Maple Leafs went on to win the Stanley Cup after recouping from a 3-0 deficit. And in 1975, the Islanders recovered after trailing by 3-0 in a quarterfinal series against Pittsburgh.

For the Capitals, who had been the favorites and who had swept the Islanders in three games in last spring's opening round, the night was an ordeal that ended in dehydration and failed expectations.

But most of all, said players from both sides, the seventh and ultimate game of their series played out like a dream.

''I'm sure the winners are feeling like they just came out of a dream, and so are we,'' said Gaetan Duchesne, a forward on Washington's premier checking line whose body was wracked by cramps as the teams went out for the final overtime session. ''But I can't imagine myself waking up tomorrow and not going on, not going to practice. Then it becomes a nightmare to us, and it becomes reality for them.''

The 75 shots that Hrudey faced in the Islander goal were a team record, while Washington's Bob Mason faced 57 shots. For nearly 129 minutes, more than two games' worth of hockey, both goaltenders stood poised for disaster and repeatedly fended it off.

It seemed appropriate that the losing goalie's only clue that the Islanders had scored on their 57th shot came from the clang of the goalpost as it was struck by LaFontaine's shot.

''I heard it, but I never saw anything,'' said Mason, who had been partially screened by the Islanders' Dale Henry and Washington's Greg Adams as they wrestled in front of the crease. ''I saw LaFontaine whirling around to take the shot, but that's the last thing I saw until I saw their sticks go up in the air and I knew it was all over. I hung in there as long as I could. Everyone did.''

Dutifully, each team trouped back to the ice after the 15-minute rest period following each of the three overtimes.

The Capitals, said one of their defenseman, Scott Stevens, used the rests to attempt to stave off dehydration, and to rekindle concentration. ''It was round after round, kind of like a boxing match, and in between, you didn't even want to talk,'' Stevens said. ''You didn't want your mind to wander.''

Things were more relaxed in the Islander locker room where, Flatley said, the team lapsed into lounge-lizard posture for the duration of each break. ''Everyone would be lying there dead to the world, and then one of the coaches would walk in and try to get us fired up and everyone would just laugh,'' Flatley said. ''It was unbelievable, and I know that what this team just went through created an unbreakable bond.''

The Capitals, who responded to LaFontaine's goal with heads bowed, said they couldn't believe their season was already just a sad memory.

''One day you're up there on top,'' Duchesne said, ''and the next day it's over, and you can stay home and chew your fingernails about it, but you won't be keeping on in the playoffs. It hurts.''

The Islanders, with just the space of a day to savor their conquest before starting another series, cited relief as their most prevalent emotion.

''I don't feel the usual elation from a victory,'' said Hrudey, the Islanders' most consequential player in the series, ''and I'm sure they must feel lower than low. Probably nobody even knows what to feel. As the night went on, I didn't even know the velocity of the shots anymore; I was too tired to have any emotion. It gets to the point where your body doesn't feel anything and your mind plays the game. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.'' THE LONGEST GAMES Stanley Cup playoff games that have gone longer than three overtime periods, with time, score, date and game-winning goal. 116 minutes 30 seconds in six overtimes. Detroit Red Wings 1, Montreal Maroons 0, 3/24/36, Mud Bruneteau. 104:46 in six overtimes. Toronto 1, Boston 0, 4/3/33, Ken Doraty. 70:18 in four overtimes. Toronto 3, Detroit 2, 3/23/43, Jack McLean. 68:52 in four overtimes. Montreal Canadiens 2, Rangers 1, 3/28/30, Gus Rivers. 68:47 in four overtimes, Islanders 3, Washington 2, 4/18/87, Pat LaFontaine. 61:09 in four overtimes, Montreal Canadiens 3, Detroit 2, 3/27/51, Maurice Richard. 60:40 in four overtimes, N.Y. Americans 3, N.Y. Rangers 2, 3/27/38, Lorne Carr.

photo of Islander players celebrating their overtime victory over the Capitals (AP)